Ashton names team to advise on EEAS

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has set up a group of senior officials to advise her on the European External Action Service (EEAS), offending MEPs who wanted to be involved in the preparations.

Ashton has to decide before April, when member states’ foreign ministers are to endorse her plans, how much detail the proposal for the EU’s new diplomatic corps should contain. Contentious questions include the status of service staff, their role in managing European Commission funds, and which bits of the Commission the service will absorb. The EEAS is supposed to be independent from both the Commission and the Council of Ministers.

Catherine Day, the Commission’s secretary-general, laid out the Commission’s thinking on some of these questions at a meeting of the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee this week (26 January). She said that the EEAS should delegate tasks to the Commission, buying in administrative services. She suggested that the EEAS could use the Commission’s chief accountant and internal auditor to check accounts and monitor payments to avoid the need to “develop a new system”. She suggested that this would ensure the greatest “continuity of service” and would be the “most economical” way for the EEAS to become operational.

Ashton will chair the planning group, whose composition is made up of representatives from the Commission, the Council of Ministers secretariat and the member states. The Commission is represented by Day; Luís Romero Requena, head of the legal service since June 2009 and before that director-general for budget; João Vale de Almeida, the director-general for external relations, who was until November head of the private office of José Manuel Barroso the Commission president; Patrick Morrison, the head of Ashton’s private office; and Patrick Child, who was until very recently head of the private office of Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the commissioner for neighbourhood policy and, before Ashton’s appointment, the commissioner for external relations.

In October, Child had been appointed to become a director in the Commission’s department for enlargement. But yesterday’s meeting of the Commission appointed him instead to the post of director of the external services in the external relations department, responsible for the Commission’s delegations, with effect from 1 February. The 135 delegations are to become a core part of the external action service.

The Council of Ministers are represented on the working group by: Pierre de Boissieu, its secretary-general; Jacques Piris, head of its legal service; Robert Cooper, head of the department for foreign and security matters who has responsibility for the Council’s missions abroad; and Helga Schmid, who headed the foreign policy think-tank of Javier Solana, Ashton’s predecessor.

Working group

The member states are represented on the working group by ambassadors to the EU from the current and future rotating presidencies – Spain, Belgium and Hungary.

A spokesperson for Ashton said that the purpose of the group was to “pull together all the elements for the initial structure” of the service. “Of course there is more work to be done afterwards,” he said. But just which bits can be left open is subject to much debate within the group. Some members doubt that there is enough time for negotiations with MEPs and suggest a framework agreement that leaves implementation details for later.

Fact File

PREPARATORY GROUP

Council of Ministers/European CommissionCatherine Ashton, high representative for foreign affairs and security policy/vice-president of the European Commission Pierre de Boissieu, secretary-general Jean-Claude Piris, director-general of the legal service Robert Cooper, director-general for external and political-military affairs Helga Schmid, director of policy unit European CommissionCatherine Day, secretary-general Luís Romero Requena, director-general of the legal service João Vale de Almeida, director-general for external relations Patrick Child, director of external service at the directorate-general for external relations (as of 1 February) James Morrison, head of Ashton’s cabinet Carlos Bastarreche Sagües, permanent representative of Spain to the EU Carlos Fernández-Arias Minuesa, representative of Spain to the Political and Security Committee Jean de Ruyt, permanent representative of Belgium to the EU Gábor Iván, permanent representative of Hungary to the EU Council of MinistersMember states

Others in the group believe that negotiations will become bogged down if the Conservative Party wins the UK’s general election, which is likely to be held in May, and therefore that the EEAS needs to be fully established before then. Revision of the EU’s current staff and financial regulations and approval of a budget for the EEAS would all require the consent of MEPs. Some MEPs are eager to use their budgetary authority as a lever of influence over the EEAS.

Ingeborg Grässle, a centre-right German MEP who follows the EEAS for the budgets committee, said that she would not vote for a framework agreement without knowing all the implementation arrangements.